By Canada Immigration Newsletter
Canada’s Minister of Immigration, Ahmed Hussen, recently reaffirmed the country’s commitment to economic immigration during a wide-ranging address in Toronto, Ontario, where he also touched on how the government plans to continue welcoming immigrants from around the world.
By Canada Immigration Newsletter
Canada’s Minister of Immigration, Ahmed Hussen, recently reaffirmed the country’s commitment to economic immigration during a wide-ranging address in Toronto, Ontario, where he also touched on how the government plans to continue welcoming immigrants from around the world.
“The 2017 300,000 landings plan increased the share of economic admissions from the previous year. This is a reflection of our commitment to the idea that immigration continues to be a key ingredient to our economic future as a country,” stated Hussen at the Canadian Bar Association (CBA) law conference, held earlier this month.
“In that spirit we’re testing new ideas, we’re introducing new programs, and we’re instituting faster processing that will help Canada to continue to attract the best and the brightest from all over the world to continue to maintain our economic prosperity.”
The immigration plan referred to by Mr Hussen is the most recent such plan presented by the government. In this plan, the share of economic immigration within the overall mix increased over the previous year. This was primarily due to the government’s effort to resettle tens of thousands of refugees throughout 2016, and to follow this effort with an increased allocation for economic immigrants in 2017.
Towards this end, the minister announced that the target of 300,000 new arrivals annually — historically high by Canadian standards — will actually be the government’s ‘baseline’ for future landings plans. The target could end up being higher than that.
Last October, a government advisory group delivered a batch of recommendations to Justin Trudeau’s cabinet, including a recommendation to increase overall immigration levels to 450,000 per year. Although the 2017 landings plan did not implement this recommendation, it should be noted that some changes have taken place since last fall.
The current immigration minister was appointed in January, and Mr Hussen is generally perceived as having taken a more proactive approach to the department than his predecessor, John McCallum. Certainly, his recent appearances and remarks reveal that he is eager to continue to make improvements to his department, primarily for the benefit of clients, who are, of course, the future immigrants that Canada needs.